If you have a dog, you know the difficulty of having a nice lawn. We’re there, too. Although, we can’t blame it all on Pandora, there was a two-year span where our lawn received the bare minimum attention. That two-year span coincided with Pandora’s first two years at home with us.
A new puppy and bare minimum maintenance did not fare well for our nice lawn. Bare spots and mini holes dot the yard.
Rest assured there are tips to have a healthier looking lawn, even when you have dogs. The professionals have assured me this is possible. They also assured me, that I will need to take steps to fix it.
In other words, if you’re hoping for a magic potion that will fix all your lawn’s woes with the snap of your fingers, you’ll have to go read a fantasy novel. It doesn’t exist.
If you’re willing to put in some effort, you have hope.
Tips to Avoid Yellow or Brown Spots from your Nice Lawn
The yellow and/or brown spots in lawns are caused by the dog’s urine as it contains high salts and nitrogen.
The NUMBER ONE response from nearly every professional is:
Train your dog to potty in a one area.
To help train your dog to pee in a particular area Daniel Caughill at The Dog Tale, recommends to “Cover the spot with a pee attractant spray before letting your dog out, and repeat this process for several days. Over time the dog should learn to pee in that corner instead of on the rest of your lawn.“
Another highly recommended tip was to take your dog on more frequent walks, so they’ll do their business elsewhere. Bonus, it’s great for wearing out your dog. Please make sure that you’re not walking your dog to save your lawn and then allowing your dog to do their business on other people’s lawns.
The next oft recommended tip was to water down the potty area after the dog does her business. This dilutes the urine and minimizes damage. If you live in the Pacific Northwest, you may not need to worry about this step. The PNW gets a lot of rain. So far, our yard doesn’t have yellow and brown patches.
And, make sure your pooch drinks lots of water, that will help, as well.
Tips for When Your Yard Resembles a Missile Test Site
If you have no idea of what I speak, your dog is not a digger, count yourself lucky and skip to the next section.
Pandora dug during puppyhood. Walking through our yard was precarious, we knew we were one wrong move away from an ankle break. Thankfully, she has outgrown the digging. Mostly. Every once in a great while she doesn’t get enough exercise and she’ll leave a few paw scrapes. She doesn’t dig, but she’ll uproot some lawn.
The experts (landscapers, lawn tenders, horticulturists, dog trainers) all agree: Get your dog exercised. Dogs do much less damage when exercised. Digging is usually, a dog’s way of saying, “I’m bored.”
If your dog still digs, Daniel Caughill, recommends putting some of their dog poop in the hole before filling it back in. “Dogs will detect their own scent when returning to the scene and instinctively not dig there anymore.”
If your dog is digging to escape, a little or big Houdini wanna-be, I’ll share a tip from a Belgian Malinois owner. I would love to give him credit, but I only met him out on the trails, and I don’t recall his name. His pup was trying to escape the yard on a regular basis, by digging under the fence. He bought some slate (not positive on the stone type – it was a flat stone though) and laid the stone (approx. 12″ x 12″) around the interior perimeter of the fence. Basically, a really nice stone path to walk along. That solved the problem for him. Granted, he did it in a professional manner; he ripped out the lawn, leveled the area, set the tiles (butt up against the fence) in some finely crushed stone.
Tips for the Dreaded Bare Spots
This area is the is the bane of my husband.
Pandora is athletic. We have four steps that lead from out deck to our lawn. There is a bare spot in our lawn about two feet from the steps (see the above picture). That is Pandora’s launch spot. Whenever she is coming inside, as soon as she hits that spot, she leaps clean onto the deck, avoids the steps completely. When she’s heading outside, she leaps over the steps and lands in the same spot.
We also have some mini bare spots that dot her frisbee path. Mostly where she launches and/or lands while going for the frisbee.
My husband is along the same idea of most professionals: Put in paver stones. I don’t really want Pandora leaping and landing on stone, her joints take enough beating.
But Lindsey Hyland of Urban Organic Yield gave a different idea: “One easy way to avoid the bare spots where dogs tread is to install artificial turf. Not only does it look nicer than a dirt yard, but it also prevents your dog from turning your yard into a mud pit.” Lindsey also recommended using mulch.
The biggest Con for the artificial turf is the debate with my husband. Apparently, his lawn pride will take a hit if he uses artificial turf. For now, we are dead-locked. If you’re curious about artificial turf and dogs, let me know. I’ll ask some deeper questions and pass along the insight: (will it hold up to dog urine? Can you use a small patch of artificial grass in a bare section of regular grass? Or any other question you have.)
If your dog isn’t leaping and/or landing on that particular spot, the stones might be the best option. If your dog lands and launches from that spot, the mulch may be the best idea (if you and your spouse are of differing opinions on artificial turf).
But wait! There’s one more trick we can try. Eric de Boer a Turfgrass & Horticulture Specialist from Simple Lawn Solutions said:
“If your dogs consistently wear out certain areas from repeatedly trouncing over the same spots, consider adding amendments to your soil like crumb rubber, that can protect your grass from the continual beating.”
A Few More Nice Lawn Tips from the Professionals
- – “Raise the height that you mow the lawn. This will make your grass hardier, and less sensitive.” Jacquelyn Kennedy at PetDT.com
- – Most professionals recommend using a more resistant grass type: Oberon Copeland of VeryInformed says “Fescue and Bluegrass are both good options.”
- -Most professionals recommend aerating your lawn.
- – When it comes to mulch Toby Schulz of Lawn says, “Finely shredded cedar mulch is preferred since it’s pet-safe and can be digested, with the added benefit of being a bug repellant.”
Nice Lawns on the Horizon
I’ve already started training Pandora to use the back corner, she tends to like that area anyway. My husband is planning on aerating the lawn at the beginning of Fall. What tips are you planning to implement?